Joëlle Léandre remembers Barre Phillips ~ The Free Jazz Collective

Wednesday, February 12, 2025

Joëlle Léandre remembers Barre Phillips

Wednesday, February 12, 2025 No comments

At the end of this past December, bassist Barre Phillips passed away. Today, fellow bassist Joëlle Léandre remembers her mentor, collaborator and friend.


Barre Phillips, Kongsberg 2019 Photo by Peter Gannushkin

Barre, dear Barre,

I met and heard you when I was so young, 15 years old, in Aix-en-Provence, my hometown, you gave a solo bass concert there, in 1963 or 65!

Pierre Delescluse, a great, passionate and stern double bass teacher took the whole class to listen to you, to see you. It was extraordinary, a solo on a forgotten, low register instrument... there in front of us!

A U.F.O., something else... A light.

You played a movement of a Bach suite for cello, transcribed of course, and music you had written spread across 6 or 7 music stands on the stage! Like an accordion you moved from stand to stand, it was magical.

One sound, then one phrase… You played as much pizz as arco , as we say in our string family vernacular. Music bursting everywhere. It was yours. You were a protagonist and a pioneer.

Later, we played a lot together, as a duo of course, in a bass quartet in tribute to Peter Kowald, but also did a show called "The grammar of grandmothers" [grandmother = surname for the double bass]: three bassists on stage at the American Center, Boulevard Raspail in Paris, where everything creative was happening – this was also the place where I went to listen to the free jazz greats and thank them all! We shared the stage with Robert Black, another explorer of the double bass.

On the stage, there were only basses laid flat, sideways… small, huge, broken, hung here and there, like a workshop, pieces of wood, bass strings in a bucket, music stands everywhere, a bass suspended like a swing... magnificent! All three of us had written a lot of music.

It came from you, Barre, the spirit of adventure, permissiveness, all these meetings and projects.

The living music, the ringing of this big cabinet that scares dogs and the taxis that reject us!

Your smile, your joy, your wisdom and mischievous eyes, many memories I keep…

With a childlike and curious mind, you were always enthusiastic and eager to share information with me about new microphones, amps, and slipcovers! We bass players are paranoid about sound, since it’s so hard to hear us. Bass players always talk shop, and you were overjoyed to show me your new carbon bass, taking it out of the hotel room into the corridor to kick it and jump on it and show me it was unbreakable, I was in tears from laughter – you always had a passion for new means of projecting a better sound. You were a complete musician, regardless of genre.

We often spoke on the phone, on the road, at hotels and during festivals. You were always the one I looked to, Barre, an example to follow. Your sound, the sound of your bass is recognizable among thousands. The sound is our identity as musicians, it's the energy we put in, the choices we make, we keep selecting, deciding, taking risks, we have to!

With an implacably accurate left hand, you made the bass a solo instrument in its own right… Others have taken over, haven’t they? We are not many...

Classical, free, jazz, who cares, I can hear your thing clearly! You remained a unique musician, ever creative and funny, talking to the audience or hiding behind the bass sometimes!

And always your kindness, reaching out to others, listening, sharing... While everything in society is based on hierarchies and domination – black and white, man and woman, serious and oral music, this style over this one – you were basically becoming the other, without hierarchy.

Making music together is loving.

Thank you Barre for everything you gave us.

We will miss you!!
JL
(translation by David Cristol)